Who controls the money in your house?

[marla]

I'm looking for some advice on how different families split and control the money in their household. My husband and I haven't been able to come up with a good plan yet where we both have some spending money of our own beyond the money that goes for all the standard stuff. If anyone has a good plan that works for them, I'd love to ehar about it.

[DivaJen]

I don't know if it's a plan, but just for an example here is how things run here:

DH is self-employed, and I am technically an employee. Once a month he writes me a check - it is half of his monthly income. He pays the mortgage, our health premiums (but not DD's) and business taxes, and I pay for everything else. We both use the same visa card account, so we can easily see how much we're spending each month (we log in online to check the balance). We have separate bank accounts, so if we want to buy something for each other and not have the other person see what we spent, we can.

But as far as having money to spend on whatever each month, it's basically a trust issue for us. We know what our goals are as far as trying to save money; we know what our monthly expenses normally are and how much money we have coming in. So we both know how much 'wiggle room' there is in our monthly income. We don't have a set amount where we consult with each other, but I wouldn't go out and buy a new computer without talking to him about it, and neither would he. We have a feel for how much is fine to spend without talking to the other person about it first.

Above all, we talk about our finances quite a lot. There are no secrets or mysteries in our relationship when it comes to money. We both know eactly how much is coming in, how much is going out, and what our goals are.

I have no idea if that is helpful, but that's our household in a nutshell.

FWIW, when we were both working and each making about the same amount of money, we split up the bills. It works for us to have us both involved that way.

[jtintle]

well for me it depends on a few things, if both partners are working, each partner should put in an equal percentage of their take home pay into a joint account, to pay the mandatory bills(IE rent/mortage electric, food, etc) As for me and my wife, we both put in 75% of our take home pay into a joint account. That gave us plenty for the bills plus some for a bailout fund(extra money to pay for repairs, or other unexpected bills). The remaining 25% of my paycheck was mine to pay off my credit card, my computer needs and such. Hers was used likewise. This way is working for me and my wife. On the joint account, we set it up for a check to be valid you need both signatures, that way we both know when a bill is paid because you had to sign the check...Hope I didn't confuse anyone, and those are my 2 cents

[Tree0164]

I am the Chief Financial Officer of our family. Meaning I know what is coming in and what is going out each month. AKA Paying the bills.

My husband works full-time and I am self-employed bringing in about 1/2 of dh's salary. I keep DH update on everything. His checks do vary as he is in sales and the checks can vary by 1000s each month. He tends be very laid back about money as I know where every penny is. He doesn't go crazy spending thankfully but doesn't watch the pennies nickels and dimes as much as I do.

[emily1067]

The most important thing is communication. If one of you "controls" the money, it's important that you communicate to the other person whats going on so they understand your financial situation....just watch some Dr. Phil- he'll tell you the same thing!

[Sara]

We both "control" the money. We both know what the other is spending and where. We both track. We both have our own accounts and a joint account together. For us, it wouldn't work out if one of us wasn't aware of what the other was doing and spending or even if one of us was completely unaware. (I'm sure that works fine for others, but knowing us, we need to hold one another accountable to continue progress)

We pay the majority of our bills online or have them auomatically deducted from our account. We also have direct deposit. When we pay bills, we are in the office and generally right next to one another.

I've found that it just works out best for us if we're on the same page.

[Ima saver]

My husband is self employed, I make his paycheck out to me. I handle and budget all the money and give my husband an allowance for gas and misc. every week. Everything is joint but we have been married a long time. When we first got married, I owned my own home and I kept it in my name til we built a new one 7 years later.

[Lostsoul33]

Every second week, hubby hands his paycheck over to me and I take care of it from there. He really doesn't have a clue about the numbers and to be honest, as long as everything is getting paid, he doesn't care that much. Just last week we had a dispute about the amount of the mortgage payment. Even after I reminded him that he hasn't paid bills in 8 years, he was convinced that he was right. Ofcourse he was wrong.
All of our accounts are joint and any major purchases are always discussed.

[cercis]

I take care of the money and paying the bills. I try to keep dh up to date on everything, but he doesn't want to hear it. I'd say every other month I can get him interested in what we have.

God help him if something happens to me. The man would never pay a bill. When he was a SAHD, I tried to turn the bill paying over to him and he just wouldn't pay them until we got cutoff notices, even though we had the money in the bank. It would drive me crazy, we were paying huge late charges just because he couldn't be bothered?

So, I took it over. I've got as many bills set up automatically as I can (which I think is all of them now). The only bills we have to remember to pay are the cc's and he's even got one of his set up on automatic pay.

[frugalfarmwife]

I'm in charge of all finiances on the farm, letting the hubby take over would be a financial disaster, we came to this decision soon after we met He came from a family that had a "we'll take care of it tomorrow" attitude about money so there was none! It has caused some problems over the years when I've had to say no to things, but he's totally on board now.

Hubby has a CC for fuel purchases and gets an occasional 5 dollars here and there, this is mandatory for our future financial success on the farm and not longterm.

Just recently he had his eyes opened VERY rudely to what happens with the "we'll take care of it tomorrow" attitude, his mother inherited a VERY large sum of money 4 years ago, it's GONE and she just came to us to help her figure out what to do, she's finally figured out that her "mean, tightwad" daughter in law ain't so stupid after all! Hubby flat out told her I'm the reason we're in such good shape and that I'm the one to listen to! Sweet music to my ears after 15 years of being the least favorite.

Each couple is unique, it's good that you are discussing the situation.

kj

[Ima saver]

My husband has never paid a bill or paid attention to money in the 30 years we have been married. He knows I might occasionally buy something silly, but I never spend for anything big unless we discuss it. I am not the type to spend a lot of money on clothes, make up, never get my hair or nails done, etc.
He has no clue how to pay the bills or what we have. I went over it with him one day, but he really doesn't want to know. He does not even know how much he makes. I write out his paycheck and give him an allowance which he uses for gas and the occasional hamburger for lunch. If he needs a tool or anything else, he knows he can have it.
I think the person that is best with money, should handle the money. I could not be married to a person that did not let me handle the finances.

[PrincessPerky]

WE control it! I don't make a cent so it is all legally DHs money, it all goes in the checking account and bills are paid.

but truthfully I do the bookkeeping . and the reminders to be more frugal, though he is great.

We have no alloowence though we together 'cheat' when we want (but not to much, and always together)

[lrjohnson]

My partner of 6 years and I keep our finances separate. We each pay 1/2 the bills; grocery, rent, utilities. Not much in the way of larger purchases; if we buy a 20 coffee table we split it, but if we were to buy a larger piece of furniture one of us would buy and own it. This works well for us. We both bank at same place, and cant transfer money between accounts, so for example he'll say, "I paid the $200 PG&E bill and $30 in groceries" and I'll transfer him $115. (We have each others passwords so we could transfer without telling the other person, but we always ask.) We've recently split who is in charge of bills; for a while, I tracked, paid, and got reimbursed-now he's doing it. Gives me a break, plus he felt for his own sake he wanted the practice.

[shelbylovesmelby]

I used to split up our funds like a pp' does. Wich worked fine & then we got married & I still pretty much did the same thing til I became a sahm & I took control of the check book. Til I got my hands on dh's finances (since, I met him because I told him I wouldn't marry someone who had lousy credit) he would put the bills aside til he felt like paying them because something in a store ect caught his eye. So dh gets his set allowance sent to his atm card & the rest to checking so I can pay the bills ect out of it.
In essence if I left it to dh we wouldn't be current on our bills but we'd have lots of cr@p we didn't "need".

[Ima saver]

We each get an allowance but mine is bigger because I use mine to buy beer, liquor, gas and eating out. My husband only has to buy gas for his vehicle. Neither of us buys anything for ourselves unless we are out shopping together. We are old enough now to know we don't need all that "stuff" in our lives. We buy what we need, if we don't need it we don't buy it.

[PRICEPLUS]

We split up the bills some years ago and I guess that is where the trouble started. We are now reviewing most of our finances together!

[abowers]

We both work. We split rent, bills, groceries. I pay for my car payment, and my student loans. We take turns paying if we go to a movie or go out to eat.

[shelbylovesmelby]

Originally Posted by Ima saver

Neither of us buys anything for ourselves unless we are out shopping together. We are old enough now to know we don't need all that "stuff" in our lives. We buy what we need, if we don't need it we don't buy it.

I wish I could train my husband to think that way. Slowly the budget of being on one income is sinking into his head. His $ goes for gas & smokes.

[BCHGRL]

My fiance and I have a rather strange arrangement. We have separate accounts. He makes about 1/2 of my salary. I pay all the bills except for his car payment. He also pays me about 1/3 of the mortgage. He saves any left over in his account, but we consider it our savings. I usually have none left over, but we are paying for a wedding.

NOw that I am much more frugal, we will probably open a joint account. But while I was in the process of changing my spending habits, he has been sheltering the money from any whimsy I might have.

[khorovetsyelena]

I take care of checking account and make sure the bills get paid on time. I pay most of my bills online, others are taken from account automatically. And there is one that I have to send in the mail, but I usually prepay for 2-3 months ahead (to save an extra stamp).
My husband is responcible for cash and savings. Whenever I have more than enough money in checking acct. for the bills, I take cash home or transfer it to savings acct.
We both use credit cards that give us money back, so I rather put all the grosseries on my credit card, so I get some money back, but my husband prefferes to use cash, he says it makes him spend less, or sometimes not buy something he wants because he doesn't have enough cash on him, and the next day he doesn't want that thing any more and he is happy he didn't spend money on it. But to me, it doesn't matter what I pay with, I don't buy anything that we can live without or still survive untill it goes on sale and/or I have coupon for it.